Quiet Comforts

It was brown.

The streetlight. It flickered between dark whites and light browns.

He stared up at it, a dying star or the moon's distant cousin. Blinking, winking awake and back to sleep all at once, constantly vacillation between dreams and consciousness.

strawberries. the taste of her kiss still on his lips. her scent still hovering around his head. spread through his hair just like her fingers. the imprint of his wrinkled clothes on his skin were a quiet testament to their nightly embrace. her body laying against his. his palms still slightly sweaty. from nervousness, anxiety, sheer happiness, remembering the familiarity of her hands. the lines etched into his hands filled in by her pulse.

Raina...

She seemed so recent, just like yesterday. She was yesterday.

her eyes held an unending happiness. capturing every single moment of felicity, every frivolity, to keep her eyes forever lit. her smile that he could not help but share whenever they were together. and laughter.

Yesterday.

and just laying there, tangled and entwined in each others' arms. listening to their heartbeats through shared pillows. feathers are the best conductors for veins. blood pulsing through cloth. connecting through thousands of millions of feathers. passing between each others' ears. gliding into brain matter. until matters of the brain cease to matter. caressing her dreams and his all at once. until the only thing that exists is each other.

Days before days and nights.

The breeze picked up the flickering from the light, transferring it back and forth between his shoes and his shadow. A single breath escaped his throat, turning to fog in the chill of constellations only growing brighter. Smoke from some wonderful drug, but he had only been inhaling memories of her, poisoning his lungs and leaving his heart more susceptible to the Earth's gravity.

He breathed again, lighter, just to know that he still was.

To think yesterday would never happen again, that she was gone, his very own breath frosted to pavement and sidewalks.

Raina.

He stared back up at the light, a last feeble blink.

And it went out.

It was gone.

It was black.